Archives for October 14, 2018

‘”It’s one of those things that you’ll never forget as a young player coming into the NHL,” coach Phil Housley said after the 3-0 win over the Arizona Coyotes in Gila River Arena. “You always know when you scored your first career goal in the NHL so I was really happy for him.”‘

‘”Just getting off to a good start on your first game, because of the long flight and the circumstances going on the road, is always critical,” Housley said prior to the game. “We’d like to kick off this road trip with a win. That sort of sets the stage for the rest of the trip.”‘

‘At 18 years and 175 days, Dahlin was the second-youngest player in Sabres history to record a point, trailing only center Pierre Turgeon, who was 18 years and 44 days when he had an assist on Oct. 11, 1987 against the Washington Capitals.’

‘Later in the period, Conor Sheary put the Sabres up 2-0 on the power play. Jack Eichel and Sam Reinhart passed the puck back and forth along the near wall before Reinhart found Sheary in front with a backhand pass. Sheary hammered it past Raanta for his 3rd goal of the young season. The score remained 2-0 until 16:29 of the 3rd period. Skinner took a long, looping pass from Rasmus Ristolainen, controlled a bouncing puck, walked in on net and tucked a shot under the crossbar to give Buffalo a three-goal advantage.’

‘The Sabres got back to playing with speed in Arizona and it showed up in spades on the Sabres first goal. Jeff Skinner blew around the Coyotes defense to walk in on Antti Raanta. Skinner hit the post, but Rasmas Dahlin used his speed to get right to the top of the crease and pop the rebound in for his first NHL goal. As it turned out, his first NHL goal was also a game-winner.’

‘”It’s always fun to make saves, especially if you can make enough saves for the team to win,” Ullmark said. “They had some pushes, but we played real solid defensively. We were keeping the guys outside.”‘